Citigroup and Barclays ended 2012 as the top advisers to companies in the US equity capital markets, with both banks shrugging off the departure of a chief executive to maintain momentum in the second half of the year.

Citi jumped from fifth to first in Dealogic’s US ECM bookrunner rankings for the full-year 2012. This marked a return to the summit for a bank that regularly held a top-three position prior to its crisis bailout by the US government in 2008. Citi ended the year with a 12.2% market share, having advised on deals worth $30.3bn.

Barclays, whose US equities business is dominated by ex-Lehman Brothers bankers, also jumped four places to second in the rankings. Barclays acquired the US operations of Lehman Brothers after its collapse in September 2008 and has been steadily building on the business since. The bank’s market share of 11.1% came on the back of deals worth $27.5bn.

Barclays was propelled up the rankings by large US mandate wins including a role as the co-lead bookrunner on the $1.1bn IPO of Health Care REIT in February, and a sole bookrunner position for Kinder Morgan’s $2bn follow-on in June.

Brian Reilly, head of US ECM at Barclays, highlighted block trades as one of the main drivers of the bank’s success in the country last year. Barclays had a bookrunner role on half of all block trade volume in the US over 2012, up from 32% in 2011.

Reilly said: "We recognised six or seven years ago that block trading would become a more prevalent means for private equity firms and venture capital firms to monetise in the market. This trend has come to fruition, particularly in 2012.”

Barclays ranked first in the US financial sponsor ECM bookrunner ranking, with an 18.7% market share, according to Dealogic.

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Reilly said that Barclays’ strength in natural resources also helped the business in 2012 and added that it would be focusing on growing its market share in the real estate and retail sectors over 2013.

At Citi, John Chirico, co-head of the bank’s capital markets origination business for the Americas, said its strengths in financials and real estate paid off early in the year as investors clambered for yield: “We believed there would be a rotation back into equities after the debt ceiling crisis in 2011”, he said. “The first quarter was strong and we caught a very early lead in the follow on and IPO business and maintained it throughout the year.”

Chirico also noted that investment in healthcare and energy over the past few years had paid off in 2012. Big mandates in the sectors included healthcare real estate firm Ventas’s $1.1bn follow-on last January and energy firm LinnCo’s $1.3bn IPO in October.

Chirico said: “Technology is also an area where we invested in 2011 and are hoping to see benefit over the coming year, on top of some good smaller successes in 2012.” He singled out Citi’s role in online review firm Yelp’s IPO in March, which was trading up 31% from its offer price, as of yesterday.

The improved performance from Barclays and Citi throughout the year came against a backdrop of investment banking reshuffles at both groups. Each bank also lost its chief executive in 2012. Bob Diamond – the architect of the UK bank’s investment banking operations – left Barclays in the immediate aftermath of the Libor-fixing scandal in June, while Vikram Pandit departed Citi unexpectedly in October.

Barclays reshuffled its investment banking team in October: Emea chief Tom King will be promoted to head the investment banking division globally and will move to New York in February. He will take over from Skip McGee, who was also promoted and will become the chief executive of corporate and investment banking in the Americas.

The success for Citi’s equity capital markets team, meanwhile, is in sharp contrast to the fortunes of its cash equities business. In December, Citi announced a major internal restructuring that will result in 11,000 jobs being cut across the group, with 600 bankers and traders to be cut across the US, Europe and Asia. Cash equities was singled out as an area under threat of cuts due to “continued low profitability”.